Women in trou­ble: On Inland Empire

“Look at me and tell me if you’ve known me before.” An invo­ca­tion heard thrice in Inland Empire, once in plur­al, once in Pol­ish, and once by Lau­ra Dern as Nik­ki Grace (or is it Susan Blue?) short­ly before she’s stabbed in the street with a screw­driv­er. And we have known her before, haven’t we? Not just Dern her­self, as Sandy in Blue Vel­vet or Lula in Wild at Heart, but the many women of David Lynch, who so often strug­gle to place their own identities.

Diane in Mul­hol­land Dri­ve has lost her­self in a dream, or per­haps it is her coun­ter­part Bet­ty who becomes lost in a night­mare. Lau­ra Palmer seems to return as her iden­ti­cal cousin Mad­dy, and then lat­er as the wait­ress Car­rie Page, who seems haunt­ed by the specter of a life she can­not remem­ber. Years after Inland Empire, Dern would join Twin Peaks as Diane, who we first meet as a tul­pa giv­en Diane’s form. The tul­pa breaks down sob­bing, chok­ing out a pained admis­sion: ​“I’m not me.”

Lynch was often laud­ed for the sen­si­tive, relat­able way he depict­ed trau­ma­tized and vul­ner­a­ble women. But he was con­sid­ered no less sen­si­tive as a direc­tor of actors, espe­cial­ly by actress­es whom he asked to per­form the most dif­fi­cult and hor­ri­fy­ing emo­tions. One way (among many) to read Inland Empire is as a dra­mat­ic metaphor for the process of screen act­ing. Nik­ki Grace los­es her­self in the world of the film she’s star­ring in (per­haps in the world of film itself), tele­port­ing across time and space, embody­ing numer­ous per­sonas, endur­ing immea­sur­able hardships.

Many view­ers strug­gle with the ellip­ti­cal, illog­i­cal struc­ture of Inland Empire. It jumps between set­tings and ideas so jar­ring­ly that try­ing to under­stand what you’re watch­ing from moment to moment can feel like try­ing to hold a wet and wrig­gling fish in your bare hands. Lynch does offer us one fram­ing device, though. The film opens with a woman cred­it­ed as Lost Girl, played by Karoli­na Grusz­ka, watch­ing tele­vi­sion and sob­bing uncon­trol­lably. We get glimpses of her through­out, always in the same sit­u­a­tion. She seems to be glued to the screen by Nikki’s mis­ad­ven­tures, utter­ly com­pelled by her suffering.

So it’s poignant that when Nik­ki final­ly tri­umphs over the strange, malev­o­lent Phan­tom who has haunt­ed her through numer­ous life­times, it’s the Lost Girl whose room she next walks into. The two women embrace, and kiss, and the Lost Girl’s mis­ery final­ly dis­si­pates. She leaves the room with the tele­vi­sion, and cheer­ful­ly greets her fam­i­ly. Mean­while, Nik­ki is seen back at her own home, her whirl­wind odyssey final­ly at an end.

The Lost Girl is trapped by a pain we can­not under­stand, a pain only alle­vi­at­ed by see­ing it reflect­ed in Nik­ki on screen. Nik­ki her­self is final­ly allowed to escape her night­mare only when she saves the Lost Girl. Per­haps, for Lynch and his actress­es, all the agony and suf­fer­ing inher­ent to mak­ing such dense and unset­tling art is worth it if it means touch­ing the soul of a trou­bled young woman watch­ing their work on screen.

To com­mem­o­rate the life and cre­ative lega­cy of the peer­less film­mak­er David Lynch, Lit­tle White Lies has brought togeth­er writ­ers and artists who loved him to cre­ate ​‘In Heav­en Every­thing Is Fine‘: a series cel­e­brat­ing his work. We asked par­tic­i­pants to respond to a Lynch project how­ev­er they saw fit – the results were haunt­ing, pro­found, and illuminating.